UMNO has lost its way and have little idea on how to move forward following its loss in the last general election, said Johor DAP chairman Liew Chin Tong.
“UMNO doesn’t have a new leadership to offer Malaysians. It’s very much stuck with its president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his predecessor Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, where both are tainted with corruption charges.
“Plus, the quarrel between UMNO-led Barisan Nasional and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia-led Perikatan Nasional is damaging both coalitions’ chances in Melaka,” he said in a blog post.
BN and Perikatan are in an odd relationship where while both of them are part of the ruling coalition, they are at loggerheads with one another on almost every issue at hand.
For the Melaka state election, Bersatu’s president Tan Sri Muhyidin Yassin had made several overtures to entice UMNO to work with him but UMNO had rejected it outright.
Islamist party PAS, while having signed a cooperation pledge with UMNO under the Muafakat Nasional charter, had decided to join Perikatan and work with Bersatu instead.
Recently, Muhyiddin chastised UMNO veteran Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad for calling the former to withdraw support from the Johor state government to trigger snap polls.
“I know Shahrir and he has bad intentions. He wants the same thing that happened in Melaka to happen in Johor.
“Don’t challenge me. I can press the button and make things happen but my concern is the wellbeing of the people,” the Pagoh MP was reported saying.
Elaborating on the matter, Liew said that both Perikatan and BN believed that their coalitions need a “paternalistic core party”, despite the idea getting rejected in the 14th General Election (GE14).
Unfortunately, he added, UMNO’s senior leaders such as Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan and Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin were also stuck with the old mentality and was defending the party’s “big brother” role in politics.
“These UMNO leaders fail to realise that the source of political instability in the past three years stemmed from the idea that the party must be the ‘taiko’, the only ruling party even if it had lost the general election.
“It did exactly that after losing GE14. UMNO aligned itself with PAS to fan Malay sentiments to burn the house down,” the former deputy defence minister opined.
Strange bedfellows
While the strategy worked for a while, which resulted in Pakatan Harapan getting toppled via the Sheraton Move, UMNO got engulfed in a bitter feud against Bersatu, as well as PAS.
“Voters are also witnessing strange things coming from both UMNO and Bersatu. Muhyiddin is talking about anti-corruption pledge while Melaka UMNO’s poor reputation on good governance stinks in the minds of the electorate across ethnic lines.
“Despite all that, Najib has become UMNO’s mascot in this election while the Bersatu is gambling on Muhyiddin’s ‘Abah’ image.
“I am told that Bersatu is basing its decision on some survey which indicates that Muhyiddin is still popular among the rural community,” Liew concluded. – Nov 15, 2021
